Merry cheesy

One night, we had a package outside.  We recognized the box, because we've given and received them before - a cheese gift box from the MSU Dairy Store!

Kris loves cheese.  It was the perfect thank you gift from some people (and friends) with whom we do business.  Kris suggested we take it to a Christmas party.

The next day, I looked outside and recognized the box ... ANOTHER gift box from the MSU Dairy Store!  The same one!  It was from our milk co-op, thanking us for participating in the OYDC program.  Kris said we should take this one to a second Christmas party.

The third day in a row - you guessed it.  A third MSU Dairy Store gift box on our porch, this one from a MSU professor thanking us for hosting a tour.  Kris said we should eat this one all ourselves.

Go cheese!  Go State!  Go gift boxes and a clever logo! 

 

 

Note: Some readers have told me that my blog now looks different on the iPad.  It's nothing I did, but if you scroll to the bottom and click 'web version' it'll look like it did before.  Thanks!

Eating cheese

I had some cheese that got a little moldy.  (I don't know how that happened.  Usually the boys in this house eat food fast enough - long before mold spores can even think about forming.)

I put it outside for the barn cat.  He wasn't around, and as I was returning outside, I saw something interesting.

Three sparrows were eating the cheese.  One of the big sparrows was also feeding it to the little baby sparrow.

Thanks to smart phone technology, I immediately googled 'Do birds eat cheese?'  I saw that tons of people had asked it before me, and that several sites assured me birds did. 

Now that I think of it, it's kind of funny that I googled 'Do birds eat cheese' when I was seeing with my own eyes that they did. 

What my real question was ... are these birds eating cheese because they live on a farm?  Is the dairy marketing working on people and animals alike?!

But birds everywhere are eating cheese.  Great!  So, instead of buying bird seed, put out some cheese.  The sites tell me it may even attract different species than you normally see in your yard.

It might also attract cats like our barn cat, who will then eat those birds. 

Cheesy

There's a love of cheese.  Then there's taking things too far.  Today I read an article called, You Eat That?, by Rachel Herz.  In it, she discusses every culture's favorite fermented dish.  In the West it's cheese, in Korea kimchee, chorizo in Spain, etc.  Then she continues: 

"My favorite fermented challenge, because I'm a cheese lover but am mortally repulsed by worms, is casu marzu. Casu marzu is a sheep cheese popular on the Italian island of Sardinia. The name means "rotten cheese" or, as it is known colloquially, "maggot cheese," since it is literally riddled with live insect larvae.

To make maggot cheese you start with a slab of local sheep cheese, pecorino sardo, but then let it go beyond normal fermentation to a stage most would consider infested decomposition (because, well, it is).

The larvae of the cheese fly (Piophila casei) are added to the cheese, and the acid from their digestive systems breaks down the cheese's fats, making the final product soft and liquidy. By the time it is ready for consumption, a typical casu marzu contains thousands of larvae.

Locals consider it unsafe to eat casu marzu once the larvae have died, so it is served while the translucent white worms, about one-third of an inch long, are still squiggling. Some people clear the maggots from the cheese before consuming it; others do not. Those who leave the maggots may have to cover the cheese with their hands—when disturbed, the maggots can jump up to six inches.

It is no accident that you likely feel revolted by many of these descriptions. The most elemental purpose of the emotion of disgust is to make us avoid rotted and toxic food."

Revolted?  Disgusted?  Yes.  Eating maggot-filled cheese or recently-filled-with-maggot cheese is gross any way I look at it.

Also disgusting?  It's made from sheep cheese.  If people are buying, let's get it made out of cow milk, at LEAST.